Wellness Topics

Student Wellness

Stress Management & Time Management

Stress is the body’s response to a perceived threat or demand. There are 2 types of
stress: eustress and distress. Eustress is positive stress that it motivational and
encourages goal achievement and high performance. Distress is negative, overwhelming,
hinders performance and contributes to decreased health and well-being. 58.5% of MSUB
students reported more than average stress or tremendous stress levels within the
last year.

People experience stress in many different ways. Sometimes stress is obvious, like
during exam week but other times you might not know that you are stressed out. People
also cope with stress in different ways, and some of them may be more healthy than
others. While some people might listen to music, exercise or do a hobby when they
are stressed, others might drink, smoke, yell, eat or procrastinate. It’s important
to be aware of and understand the ways in which you exhibit stress so that you can
prepare for stressful situations and choose activities to distress that will work
best for you.

Stress Management Tips

Stay Healthy- Many students think they should spend all of their valuable time studying, but keeping
yourself healthy will help you to stay alert when studying and retain more information. Eat
a balanced diet and avoid sugary snacks and caffeine which will make you crash. Try
to exercise 30 minutes per day, to keep you energized and feeling healthy.

Get enough sleep- Aim for 8 hours of sleep per night. Plan to allow for a full night’s sleep; an all-nighter
will not help you pass the exam as much as a solid study period with a good night’s
sleep.

Avoid drugs and alcohol- Keep your mind alert and focused, drugs and alcohol can cause undue stress and anxiety
that you don’t need.

Keep a positive attitude- Don’t get down in the dumps and start to feel hopeless. Remind yourself that you
can and will get through. Put reasonable expectations on yourself and look for the
positives in the situation.

Avoid stressful people or situations- If you know that hanging out with a certain group of people, calling your parents,
or paying your bills always causes you a lot of stress, try to avoid during high stress
times.

Just say no- Not just to drugs but to the requests of people around you for your time or energy.
Tell your friend you can’t hang out, just say no to working extra hours or spending
time on an extracurricular activity.

Time Management

Keep a detailed planner- it’s almost impossible to remember everything you have to do in your head. Come
up with a system that works for you. It may be a physical planner, a planner on your
phone, a google calendar or icalendar. Whatever it is, have a place to write down
all of your time commitments.

Plan out your time- decide how much time to devote to each task or activity that needs to get done.
You don’t want to spend all your time on one thing only to find that it’s midnight
and you haven’t even started the paper due tomorrow.

Prioritize- You need to do the paper that is due on Tuesday before spending all your time studying
for the test on Friday. Use to-do lists or other methods of prioritizing to rank what
needs to be done first.

Avoid over-committing- it just might not be realistic for you to be a full time honors student, work two
jobs, play sports and be the president of your student organization. Learn how to
say no so that you can spread your time out reasonably.

Take responsibility- time management is one of the biggest ways that college is different than high school.
You have to make your own schedule, budget your time and ultimately only you are responsible
for completing all of your responsibilities. Take charge and come up with a system
that works for you.